


Singer

by starlightstarshine



Category: VIXX
Genre: Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 18:16:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9915068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlightstarshine/pseuds/starlightstarshine
Summary: Hongbin felt worthless, especially as a singer.





	

Singer [sing-er]: a person who sings, especially a trained or professional vocalist.

The first time Hongbin fell in love was when he watched Park Hyo Shin perform on television. The man’s voice was mesmerizing, it was so deep and raw that the feelings displayed by his voice reached inside you, and connected itself with your own soul, your own memories, allowing yourself to feel what he felt when he sang.

The moment Hongbin heard Park Hyo Shin sing, Hongbin wanted to become a singer.

Of course, with his great looks, many had told him to become an actor, model, or even just a celebrity that jumps around in different areas. It wouldn't have been hard considering his flower boy charms. Yet, Hongbin wasn’t inspired to become a celebrity until he watched that performance and he didn’t want to become just any celebrity, he wanted to become a singer like Park Hyo Shin.

With a goal of becoming a singer, Hongbin set out to audition to a company, the only problem, he didn’t actually know how to sing. With a quick sign up to singing classes, Hongbin tried to condense years worth of vocal lessons into a few weeks.

Jellyfish, Park Hyo Shin’s company, was holding an audition soon.

The day of the audition came in a whirlwind. With a heavy heart and with not much confidence, he set out to the auditions. As he watched the other kids his age practice for their auditions in the waiting room, Hongbin felt his heart in his throat.

They were really good. Way better then them.

If you ask Hongbin now, he would say he barely remembers the day of his auditions, it all just went by in a blur. He doesn’t remember doing a horrific job but he doesn’t remember doing a really good job either. But one thing that he will never tell you, one thing that was forever stuck in his memory, is the what he overheard from a conversation between a couple of guys at the audition.

“Hey did you hear? The handsome dude got selected.”

“Are you serious? He was one of the worst singers here.”

“Looks, man, as long as you got that natural beauty any company would want you. Even a company like Jellyfish who are heavy on vocals, needs a flower boy, especially since they might be making an idol boy group soon. Ugh, but even solo singers nowadays need visuals, or they won’t succeed. Frustrating, right?”

With a heavy heart Hongbin went home, though he held a signed contract in hand, he went home as if he had been rejected, he was one step closer to becoming a singer, but he didn’t feel like he was anywhere near becoming one.

Trainee life was horrible, the only thing that helped him through it was the little friends he made at the company, his family and the Park Hyo Shin playlist on his phone. It kept on telling him to never give up, to continue following his dream to become like his idol, to become a singer.

Even through the brutal dance lessons, and horrific vocal lessons in which the vocal teacher sighs in frustration every time she sees him, Hongbin still had to go to school. At school, is when he fell in love for the second time.

The school was holding this assembly and the choir from a nearby school came to perform. In that choir, there was a boy who sang as womderful as Park Hyo Shin, a boy who made Hongbin fall in love with a voice again, a boy who Hongbin later learns is named Lee Jaehwan.

_I want to be a singer like him._ Hongbin thinks as listens to the boy, who just a few years older than him, sing his heart out.

_I want to be a singer like him_.

But of course, in the back of his head, he knew that no matter how hard he tried he could never be a good singer like him.

Trainee life was a drag and they got a couple more additions, the more trainees that joined, the more Hongbin felt insecure. Each trainee seemed to better then him, and ones who were better singers than him were sent home, while Hongbin stayed, feeling like he didn’t deserve the place he was given.

“I don’t get it.” Hongbin said to no one in particular as he screwed up on one of the pitches, again.

Hakyeon, who liked to call himself N, immediately responded, “What’s wrong Hongbin?”

Hongbin winces, wishing that N didn’t hear him. Out of all the trainees in the company N was one of Hongbin’s only friends, and for some reason always regarded Hongbin in a high pedestal, saying he never saw anyone learn as quickly as him. Hongbin didn’t want to voice his insecurities to N no matter how generous the man was, so he just shook head, mumbling something about the  the new dance routine to distract N.

A deep plummet to his self esteem came when he met one of the new trainees a few days after. Lee Jaehwan was standing in the middle of their company practice room. His first thought was, why was he here? Surely a man of his talent would have been recruited by one of the big three, (not that Jellyfish was a bad company but it wasn’t as flashy as the big three) but here that man was. Hongbin couldn’t tear his eyes away from the man with the beautiful voice, a true singer, and when the man greeted him by bowing,  Hongbin walked away as if he had never seen it. He was sure he saw the man frown.

Surprisingly, Jaehwan wasn’t as perfect as he thought, the man may be a wonderful singer but he was a hopeless dancer. As N was working with another new trainee, Taekwoon, Hongbin was given the task to teach Jaehwan dancing skills.

Honestly the man was kind of hopeless, so despite himself, one day, Hongbin just burst out laughing.

Jaehwan frowned, “I’m sorry do you hate me or something?”

Hongbin stopped laughing and stares at the other’s frowning face. Seeing the lack of response Jaehwan immediately shakes his head and walks away, “You know what forget it. I could ask someone else to help me with dancing.”

Hongbin yanks the back of Jaehwan’s shirt before the other man could turn away, “I saw your performance at my school. You were a very good singer.”, he says quietly.

Jaehwan raises his eyebrows in surprise, “Oh. Did you like it?”

“Yeah.”

“I can teach you the song if you want.”

Hongbin shakes his head, “I don’t think I could ever sing a song like that. Even if I did I would probably ruin it.”

Jaehwan looks at the other, puzzled, but then something soft fell across his face and suddenly Jaehwan was softly patting the other’s back.

After that as a ‘payment’ for his extra dance lessons Jaehwan gave Hongbin vocal lessons. With Jaehwan guiding him, he didn’t feel as helpless and he thought maybe, just maybe, he could become a singer.

But of course, the world didn’t like him being hopeful so it threw the disaster that was the monthly evaluations at him. Usually he would do slightly worse on the vocal section compared to the other sections but this time, probably because of the cold he got a few days before, made his voice worse.

The vocal teacher threw her clipboard on the table in frustration and mumbled, “You’re just a pretty face.” And walked off.

They were just a few words that were mumbled but Hongbin took it harshly, tears pricked his eyes as he went back to the dorms and sobbed into his pillow. Jaehwan and N tried to approach him, but every time they tried to talk to him he just ignored them.

Graduation was an important time where decisions and realizations were made. On his graduation day Hongbin realized, he couldn’t do it anymore, he was going to quit. Out of embarrassment, he left without saying a word to anyone. But of course, he should have known that it wasn’t going to end just like that. Before he knew it, N was knocking at his door at 12am and, literally, dragged him back to the dorm.

At the dorm, Jaehwan enveloped Hongbin into a hug and made the other promise to never leave again.

Years later, after VIXX was created, after Hongbin was put in the same group as his idol, he liked to talk about the time when they were trainees. About his first days at the company, N’s nagging, the hard times, the good times, about the times when he would laugh at Jaehwan’s horrible dancing, about what ran through his head when he first saw Jaehwan after seeing him singing at his school and at his hilarious attempt to escape from Jellyfish. Jaehwan would always get this peculiar expression on his face when they talked about that particular event in their trainee life, as if he was thinking about something gloomy.

One day as they were lying down on the couch talking about their trainee life, Hongbin asks the reason behind Jaehwan’s expression during that topic.

Jaehwan just frowns and says, “I just think about the fact that if N didn’t literally drag you back, it would have been such a pity.”

“Why.”

“It would have been a pity because…then you wouldn’t have turned into the amazing singer you are now and wouldn’t have faced the world as a singer. It would have been such a pity to waste such a beautiful voice.”

Hongbin had to turn himself away from Jaehwan so the other couldn’t see the tears forming in his eyes. As he blinks back tears Hongbin quickly changes the topic to something irrelevant. But to his dismay, Jaehwan noticed the liquid forming in Hongbin’s eyes and he immediately pulled the other into a hug.

That night Hongbin fell asleep thinking, _I am a singer_.


End file.
